T&T's busi­ness lead­ers are large­ly op­ti­mistic and ea­ger to work with new Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Vish­nu Dhan­paul, and are call­ing on him to ad­dress the thorny is­sue of for­eign ex­change avail­abil­i­ty.

Dhan­paul was sworn in as the min­is­ter on Mon­day af­ter­noon, re­plac­ing Colm Im­bert who, af­ter al­most ten years as Fi­nance Min­is­ter, was re­as­signed to the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties.

The T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce said in a re­lease it "is en­cour­aged by the ap­point­ment of Mr. Vish­nu Dhan­paul as Min­is­ter of Fi­nance. His ex­ten­sive ex­pe­ri­ence in eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy and pub­lic sec­tor trans­for­ma­tion will be crit­i­cal to ad­dress­ing fis­cal chal­lenges, restor­ing busi­ness con­fi­dence, and ac­cel­er­at­ing eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery. We look for­ward to work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to ad­vance poli­cies that sup­port en­tre­pre­neur­ship, strength­en the ease of do­ing busi­ness, and bol­ster Trinidad and To­ba­go’s glob­al com­pet­i­tive­ness."

Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce pres­i­dent, Bal­dath Ma­haraj, sim­i­lar­ly felt that Dhan­paul's ex­pe­ri­ence in the Min­istry would be an as­set. Dhan­paul had pre­vi­ous­ly been a per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry.

He said, "His wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence in fi­nan­cial man­age­ment and eco­nom­ic poli­cies come at a cru­cial time when busi­ness­es are fac­ing mount­ing fi­nan­cial pres­sures. The Cham­ber is ea­ger to work with Min­is­ter Dhan­paul to press the re­set but­ton on key fi­nan­cial is­sues par­tic­u­lar­ly the time­ly re­ceipt of VAT and oth­er tax re­funds as well as the per­sis­tent for­eign ex­change short­ages that con­tin­ue to hin­der busi­ness op­er­a­tions and eco­nom­ic growth. Ad­dress­ing these mat­ters with ur­gency is es­sen­tial to restor­ing sta­bil­i­ty and in­vestor con­fi­dence."

How­ev­er, Ma­haraj felt Dhan­paul had work to do with re­gard to fu­ture fi­nan­cial plan­ning, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the un­cer­tain­ty fac­ing en­er­gy sec­tor projects in the wake of Unit­ed State Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump's re-elec­tion.

He said, "T&T econ­o­my re­mains heav­i­ly re­liant on the en­er­gy sec­tor and with­out a clear strat­e­gy to hedge against po­ten­tial short­falls, Busi­ness­es and the wider econ­o­my could face sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges. The cham­ber urges the Min­is­ter to lead ef­forts in di­ver­si­fy­ing rev­enue streams and strength­en­ing fi­nan­cial re­silience in the face of this un­cer­tain­ty."

Ma­haraj al­so urged Dhan­paul to aid SMEs in terms of ac­cess to for­eign ex­change, a point of view that the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce (GS­FCC) pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh agreed on.

"What we would ex­pect the new Min­is­ter would ad­dress, of course, the num­ber one burn­ing con­cern for the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is forex. And we re­al­ly ex­pect that he would ad­dress that is­sue as soon as he pos­si­bly can. We don't ex­pect he will take long to get in­to his new role as the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance hav­ing been in the Min­istry for so many years," said Singh, who not­ed that Min­is­ter Im­bert had been work­ing with the Ex­im­Bank to ad­dress this is­sue.

"The SME sec­tor is al­ways at a dis­ad­van­tage and we ex­pect that the new Min­is­ter of Fi­nance will as­sist and have this process more open and ex­pand­ed to ben­e­fit the SME sec­tor as we face the chal­leng­ing eco­nom­ic times right now," he said.

Guardian Group CEO Ian Chi­napoo as well as Massy Hold­ings CEO Robert Ri­ley both said at IDB In­vest sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny with Massy Group to 'Ad­vance Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment in the Caribbean and Be­yond' at the Hy­att Re­gency that they were look­ing for­ward to work­ing with Dhan­paul, as they both said his ex­ten­sive ex­pe­ri­ence in fi­nance is an as­set.